More on the ongoing technological attack on democracy in the US and the UK.  From the New York Review of Books:

The Oligarch Threat

I have been following stories like this for years, often in the technical press.  There is little doubt in my mind that electronic voting machines in many places in the US are being tampered with.  And let’s be blunt: one side seems to be doing all the tampering.  I myself have been illegally “scrubbed” from voter rolls.

Probe of missing Georgia votes finds “extreme” irregularities in black districts

Last year’s lieutenant governor race may have had a huge undercount in black precincts. Sound like coincidence?

Was in the yard and smelled an unpleasant sulphur odor.  Figured something might have died in the yard next door and thought I might check on it later.  A few times over the years deer have impaled themselves on an iron fence in the back with some ill advised decorative spikes.

I was pulling the cover off the pool when I realized where the smell was coming from. A large, maybe 25 lbs, armadillo popped up from under the cover, dead.

So much for taking it easy this Saturday.  It was almost 100F and we hadn’t had rain in two months. The ground was like rock.  I ignored the floating corpse for now and got a shovel and my six foot long iron pry bar to help break up the ground.  It was going to take a while.

I found a spot far in the back and started to dig.  And to sweat.  I eventually got down about a foot and decided that was enough.  Then I tried to think of the best way to get Mr Armadillo from the pool to his fresh grave.  I decided to go with scooping him on the shovel, hoping he wouldn’t fall off and that I could make the haul all the way to the back of the yard.  My arms were already aching.

Flies had set in so I got some bug spray and gave him a shot.  Mmmm, floral scented.  That would help.  I took a deep scoop and lifted and started walking briskly to the back.  I wished I had gripped the shovel lower to make it easier to carry, but it was too late.  I shuffled as fast as I could to the hole.  When I got there I wished the hole was bigger, but I slid Mr A in, and only his pointy tail was a problem.  I shoved dirt in quickly and covered him in a mound, boot hill style.  A couple of watering cans of water to help settle the dirt in and a big flat Rock on top and I was done.  Sorry, no pictures.

Never heard of this before.  A nationwide series of lynchings killing hundreds of black Americans.  This was in 1919, just after WW I, 60 years after the Civil War.  From Wiki: Red Summer

Been so busy I had two heads of cabbage in the refrigerator for the better part of a week and hadn’t done anything with them.  One was red cabbage then other green.  Decided to do a mixed half and half sauerkraut and used the rest for Cole slaw.  The family seems to like the salted and beat up cabbage in the slaw.

A NYT article by a former Times Picayune writer.  New Orleans is definitely changing.  I am concerned that the loss of land to the south and the effects of climate change (rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes, more rainfall) make the actual survival of New Orleans and really all of south Louisiana doubtful.  Small towns have already disappeared and nobody seems to be paying any attention.  Of course, much of this is tied to the oil industry, which dominates south Louisiana in a colonial fashion.  Much (but not all) of the loss of  land is tied to the way the oil industry did it’s work, digging canals across the wetlands. The rest is the global problem from burning the extracted oil.  It saddens me deeply to think that this part of the world is being destroyed without much notice, much less a fight.  And then there is the gentrification.

This blog was started as a protest against the abuses of social media.  This article discusses modern social media in the context of traditional addiction.

When I first started reading this I thought, here we go, another business article worshiping another billionaire investor who made it big on a tilted table.  Then I read this quote from the investor being profiled:

“Politicians tend to follow the polls instead of their hearts or brains. They listen more to political consultants than to voters. Our short-term-maximizing politicians fail to tackle longer-term so­cietal challenges such as climate change or unaffordable entitlement programs and the resultant on- and off-balance-sheet liabilities.”

Here we go.   Translation: Wall Street is going to fix global warming, but it will cost you your Social Security and Medicare.  And don’t pay any attention to that Democracy stuff, either.

It is a long article, but worth the effort.  The author takes aim at the big business schools but does give a larger view of the problem.  From the American Affairs Journal:

The Financialization of the American Elite

America seems to be re-evaluating its history of African slavery.  It seems to have started with some movies, perhaps in the way westerns were popular when I was a boy.  I am perhaps thinking of later westerns of the 1960s and 1970s.  I can’t say much about the ones before that, although I am sure I sat through a John Wayne movie or two on TV as a boy.

This shift to a re-examination of slavery is probably generational and is happening because most of the original participants are no longer with us.  What surprises me is the push back by conservatives.  They seem to be admitting that much of America is a myth and that they are afraid of some sort of chaos if that myth is recognized for what it is (a myth).  It seems like an argument I have heard whispered by certain religious leaders.  One can’t help but think that then only chaos will be theirs personally as they lose power of the people who have bought into their fictions.

The Fragile Patriotism of the American Conservative

The New York Times’s new 1619 project argues fiercely for a new understanding of what it means to believe in America—and it is cracking the very foundations of conservatism.

I am a fan of Oliver Sacks and really enjoyed his article on his Face Blindness.  A good read by someone with the same neurological problem.  The author is very insightful and talks about how this one small thing set the course for much of her life.

My Life With Face Blindness

When your brain won’t let you recognize people, how do you navigate the world?